Research Seminars

Research seminars

Wednesday 26th October 2016

The place of irony in a theory of texual meaning.

Lesley Jeffries (University of Huddersfield, UK)

As part of the development of a theory of textual meaning, I have been attempting to work out how concepts that are popularly understood, but rarely well-defined, fit into the overall model of communication. In this paper, I will set out the case for analysing examples of irony according to nature of the clash of information that is inherent in them. For example, some irony may be produced by a clash between a text and the situation it occurs in whilst other examples may be produced by a clash between the text and the interactional context. As part of the effort to characterise irony, I will also attempt to explain other apparently similar phenomena (such as paradox and hypocrisy) using the same framework. This is work in progress, so I look forward to some input from the audience!